


drops in the bucket, or something like that.

by thychesters



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Game(s), a look at some of the behind the scenes of her show, but she enjoys her work despite the frustrations, headcanon heavy but that's neither here nor there, while she gripes about the cold bc lbr it's cold. it's not fun. a hard pass., ya boi drake gets an honorable mention but let's not forget the real star here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 00:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13019622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thychesters/pseuds/thychesters
Summary: In which Elena Fisher has a contempt for the cold, a roommate who offers advice she may have subconsciously been looking for, and a producer who name drops. (And Iceland really isn't all that bad, even if it's pretty dang cold.)





	drops in the bucket, or something like that.

**Author's Note:**

> can you tell i make up tags on the spot.
> 
> as i said, this is pretty headcanon-heavy, and while some of mine regarding elena's backstory (including her show and otherwise) fluctuate, this is what i ended up with after letting the first chunk sit for two weeks. my initial goal was to have a few follow-ups, a story encompassing more of the show itself/her first meeting with nate and an exploration of their dynamic pre-game, but that clearly didn't happen in this chunk. ah well, something for another time.
> 
> rebecca's a character i've had sitting around for a while as elena's former college roommate. she'll likely be a recurring character in other works, but that's neither here nor there. (also, she's vietnamese. the kimchi thing is a running joke, and i think that's a few too many headcanons being dumped all at once, lmao.)
> 
> for now, this is a stand alone. for now. and it was supposed to be _short._

****Elena Fisher was not built for cold weather. A Floridian by nature, she’s better suited for warmer climes, where the most she has to adorn herself with for cooler weather is a light jacket and maybe a scarf if she’s looking for a splash of color. Cold weather is more a test of character and mettle, which explains why she’s currently stationed outside of the town of Húsavík, working double time to suppress her shivers and teeth chattering while she goes on about archaeological finds of old Viking ships and settlements.

Her next episode is on Barbados. God, she can’t wait to go to Barbados—or at least back to the hotel, where she can bundle herself up in all the bedsheets her room has to offer and scroll through e-mails from the higher-ups and her roommate.

As it stands, she tries not to squint too much in the glare of the sunlight off the snow, and hopes her mic picks up more of her voice than it does her footfalls. She tries not to dwell much on the deadline that’s steadily approaching while she gesticulates about Naddoddr, credited with founding Iceland, and Skjálfandi, a nearby location and names she hopes she isn’t completely butchering.

Elena stares down the camera, at once as personable as she is cold, all flushed features with spots of red high-up on her cheekbones, her excitement over history warring with her general discomfort. At the very least, some of that said discomfort takes up residence on the back burner when she finds a particularly interesting tidbit to elaborate on. Her last was on a Viking explorer circumnavigating Iceland, though it hit a bit of a speed bump when she butchered the pronunciation of his name. But that’s what re-shoots are for.

Right now it’s nothing but her and her equipment out here on the plain outside of town, nothing but her and her camera and the mic clipped into the collar of her jacket while people mill about on the edges, going about their business. There are two other crewmen in town, but they’re mostly for filler shots and making sure she isn’t dead, Elena thinks. Besides, they’re only here for four days while she has a solid two weeks under her belt.

Production calls it budgetary restrictions, hems and haws on the occasion they do send her with a cameraman rather than taking some kind of Bear Grylls approach, and she sees it as a more of a ‘not sure this show’s even gonna last’ kind of thing, or declaring she did just fine on  _Survivor_  without a huge team behind her. What they seem to forget is that there was, in fact, quite the production team there, aside from the lone cameraman assigned to each contestant.

A bitter part of her is convinced they’ve only given her her show and time slot based on her name and appearance on a reality show where she came in second, rather than based on her merits and skill set. But then, Elena Fisher’s never been above proving anyone wrong about her.

“While one of the main draws of Húsavík continues to be its whale watching venues, what many non-locals may fail to realize is that the town itself was once home to the first permanent residents of Iceland.”

 _Budgetary constrictions._ Each time she talks to Wallace about the direction her show’s headed in, she likes to imagine him with oily black hair slicked back, waving a large cigar around, talking out of the side of his mouth and telling her she’s  _got real moxie, kid_ , when in reality he’s graying at the temples and saying she’s really proven to be something, but they don’t have the funding to grant her a whole crew and all the amenities. Surely she understands.

It’s like a nice way of saying while her show is pretty decent, it’s kind of like their back-up to their back-up programming. And it’s not like ratings have improved eighteen percent over the last two weeks, even though they have, Wallace. They keep bringing up the option for a mid-season hiatus every so often too, even though she’s getting two episodes ahead of schedule—almost three, if they count her current stint in Iceland.

There’s no guarantee of a second season, and Elena would be lying if she said not knowing was eating at her.

“Non-locals? That’s what I’m going with?”

She shifts, moving back to the mark she drew for herself in the dirt, a nice ‘x’ made by the toe of her boot as she works her way back through her spiel, trying to figure out an appropriate place to leap back into. Did she pause before or after she started going off about Naddoddr?

“Okay, okay,” Elena murmurs, head bent to check her footing. “Vikings, and discovery… people doing really important things—a bunch of dead people doing things…”

She plants her heels in the dirt and gives the camera a wide smile before taking a breath.

“When most people hear the term Viking, they assume pillage and plunder, but as you can see…” she trails off, sweeping an arm out behind her to gesture at the plain she’s presiding over and toward the snow-capped mountains in the distance. Deadlines and equipment frustration aside, it’s quite the sight to behold. And she gets to do this for a living. “Not a whole lot to pillage besides dirt and snow.”

Her smile falters. It isn’t even much a joke, let alone any good.

Elena drops her arms back to her sides with a sigh, staring down the camera lens as if it’s going to provide her any support or answers, and another few minutes pass before she trudges through the thin layer of snow on the ground in patches toward her gear. She’s losing light and while it’s cold enough to begin with it’s only going to get colder once the sun goes down. She’s done her time, she’s done her research, sketched out the bare bones of a basic script for herself, and she’s earned a nice warm night bundled up in her hotel room going over the footage she can salvage from the day.

The red light fades outs, and she looks away to let her gaze wander over the mountains again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“It’s nine-oh-two in the fucking morning, this had better be good,” Rebecca says by way of greeting while Elena tugs the quilt she wrestled off the bed tighter around her. Truth be told it’s not as cold as it could be and the snowfall isn’t that heavy as of yet, but that doesn’t make her toes feel any better. “And you better be footing the bill for my minutes, Fisher.”

“Your check’s in the mail,” she says, clicking through various clips from the last few days. Aiden gave her his card of stock footage from the town, and thus far it’s eighty percent the back of peoples’ heads and shopfronts that, while interesting, she likely won’t use.

“Sweet deal,” Rebecca says through a yawn. “So how’s Norway? Find anything exciting yet?”

“Iceland. And it’s mostly been talk about Vikings and the founding-slash-discovery of Iceland itself. You probably wouldn’t, but I think it’s really cool. Cold, but cool.”

“You would, you nerd.”

Elena clears her throat, focusing on a forty second clip of Aiden panning over the landscape, something that'll prove adequate for her opening monologue for the episode, or maybe a teaser before the credits.

“Eh, I guess it comes and goes. It was only my major.”

“Yeah, and then you went on to place second in  _Survivor_ , but that’s just another drop in the bucket.”

“I know, my life is so boring,” she murmurs, dragging up the files from earlier, a little deadened to seeing herself on screen. The first time it was bit surreal, but after splicing herself together for the past few months essentially by her lonesome, it’s old hat. “It’s still fucking cold here though, and it hasn’t even snowed that much.”

“Language,” Rebecca chides, and on the other line Elena can hear rustling as she gets out of bed. She does feel some remorse for waking her, but after spending the last six years living with her, she doesn’t feel much guilt when it comes to bothering her college roommate. Granted, she could have waited another hour for her regular wake up time, but  _po-tay-to, po-tah-to_. “Gosh, woe is me, I get to travel around the world for work and talk about it on film, all while a production company pays for my room and board and all that shit.”

Elena ducks her chin into the collar of her turtleneck, “When you put it that way you make me sound like an ass.”

“I do it out of love.” She make another few digs at her, nothing with any real heat, and nothing she pays much heed to as she watches the wind play with her hair onscreen, the pesky few strands framing her side of her face that are always too short to be pulled back in a hair tie and always get in her eye. Elena frowns into the wool collar, the tip of her nose still cold as she unmutes her computer. Her own voice greets her, pontificating about Naddoddr and Húsavík and—

“ _Shit_ ,” Elena hisses, pulling her face back out of her sweater. She scrubs her free hand down the side of her face before her fingers tangle in her already mused hair. Rebecca gets in a faint  _huh?_  while her recorded self continues to gesture, and then pauses and backs up to her starting point. “My mic. in my collar—it picked up more wind and the sound of my sleeves brushing against my jacket than my voice. Now I have to go out and re-shoot everything.”

“Didn’t you have to to begin with?” Rebecca offers, and she can hear the sound of her digging through the cupboard for the coffee mug she always uses.

Elena huffs. “Well, yeah, but that’s not the point. I have a couple hours worth of footage and I can’t even use most of it because I messed up and couldn’t even record myself properly. And I hate snow.” Her hand drops back to her lap, and she stares herself down in her screen. “I mean… okay, I don’t  _hate_  it, but my point remains. It’s cold.”

“Okay, relax,” her roommate tells her, as if she’s also run a one-woman show by herself, operated all the equipment and edited each episode together in time for the producers. Rebecca works in accounting, which is great for her and their rent, but not so much for all the times she’s tried to give Elena advice on how to operate a TV show from behind the scenes. “You’re already ahead of schedule, you said it yourself. Which means you have time to go back and re-shoot some scenes, and besides, can’t you just sit in your hotel room and record voiceovers and stuff over your clips?”

Elena grumbles something unintelligible, and clicks back to watching Aiden pan through the town.

“Don’t make mountains out of mole hills.”

 _Easy for you to say,_  Elena thinks, pulling her lower lip through her teeth as she backtracks through today’s schedule. Rebecca’s not entirely  _wrong_ , it’s just…

“What’s really up? Mic. situations aren’t exactly new here.”

She sighs, closing her editing software for the time being to open up an internet browser. At the very least, scrolling through the spam folder of her e-mail to the tune of Rebecca chatting about whatever will be a welcome distraction. Nothing like hearing there’s hot singles in her area she’s not interested in, even if that area is Los Angeles and she’s currently in northern Iceland.

“I love my job, I do. I get to travel, and explore, and tell people stories and talk about the history I love. It’s amazing, and I’m grateful I get the experience and wouldn’t trade it for anything, and it’s a great job and frustrating too, but the end result is always worth it. Every time I finish an episode I get to look back and say  _I did that, I was there,_ and I wouldn’t give that up,” she says, highlighting a couple junk e-mails before hitting delete. “And I know I have to take the good with the bad, it’s just… sometimes it’s hard to really enjoy something when you have someone breathing down your neck the entire time. Wallace goes on about budgets and beats around the bush at how my show is doing alright, but never anything stellar in the ratings, and—it’s dumb, I shouldn’t complain about something I’m lucky to do. It’s just… frustrating.”

It’s quiet for a beat before Rebecca supplies: “So like a vacation with a deadline.”

“I guess?” Elena says, leaning back against the headboard. She looks up at the ceiling, internally chiding herself. She’s lucky to have the opportunity in the first place, and she’s never backed down from a challenge before, not if she can help it. “Wallace keeps bringing up the idea of a second season, but makes it sound like he’s too hesitant to follow through with it. I’d rather know if there was a death day to prepare myself for than to get my hopes up, you know?”

“Death day sounds morbid,” Rebecca says, clearing her throat. “I get it, though. Kinda reminds me of you getting ready for big presentations back at school; I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone throw themselves into a powerpoint so much.”

“It was my thesis,” she says, the headboard digging into the back of her head, the angle awkward from where her bun’s pressed against it. “Of course I got invested in that. I wanted to graduate.”

“Yeah, and you did. I’ve never seen you back down from a challenge—you might get a bit frustrated because hello, human, and sometimes people ask way too much, but I don’t think the words ‘give up’ are in your vocab. unless you’re battling something in that Crash game.” Elena chuckles a little to herself, going to mutter  _shut up_  before Rebecca continues. “You’re Elena Fisher, when someone tells you  _no_  you’re basically like  _hold my beer and watch this._ ”

“I don’t think I’ve ever said that,” she says. “But thanks.”

“It’s been heavily implied. Though I guess I should say tequila, not beer. And you’re welcome.”

Elena hums and sits up, pushing her laptop away to stretch out her legs, trying to wiggle the toes of her left foot that’s fallen asleep. “Mountains and mole hills, huh?”

“It probably doesn’t help that you share the same time slot as  _Supernatural_ ,” Rebecca says. “Speaking of which, I TiVo’d the beginning of season three for you, and girl let me tell you, you are missing something big.”

“I haven’t even finished season two, don’t spoil things for me.” Elena draws her blanket back up to her shoulders, hunching over to leech what warmth she can from it.

“Still?”

“I’ve been a little busy, you know. Traveling… exploring… this TV show isn’t gonna run itself.”

“Oh yes, the difficult life you live. Weep for us mere mortals.” Rebecca heaves a sigh, and she can hear the drag of one of the wooden chairs at their kitchen table across the linoleum. “Listen, I love our chats, I really do, but this mere mortal has to pee like a race horse and I highly doubt you want to be part of that.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Elena mutters, casting a glance from the bureau back to her laptop.

“It was a bonding experience. Also, mom swung by to visit the other day and left some more kimchi, so head’s up that it’s either going to be gone or spoiled by the time you get back. Likely the former.”

Elena laughs a little, dragging her laptop onto her thighs. “Good to know? I’ll be sure to mourn properly.”

“Damn right you will,” Rebecca sniffs. “Alright, I really gotta go before I piss myself in the kitchen. Talk to you…at some point, after you’ve paid my cell phone bill. I hate those roaming charges.”

“Gotcha, Becky you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind, hey Becky,” she says, and laughs at the resulting groan.

“Oh shut the fuck up. That wasn’t funny junior year and it’s not funny now.”

“It’s a little funny,” Elena murmurs.

“Goodbye, history nerd.”

Her phone bounces once on the bedspread after she tosses it, and wiggles a little to get some feeling back in her backside as she goes to sift through the rest of her inbox. There isn’t much of note, aside from a Bath & Body Works coupon, and an e-mail from eight minutes ago from one of her producers marked URGENT. Not much one to play tag via e-mails, Elena sighs and steels herself before she’s reaching for her phone again, prepared for a chewing out or to do some chewing of her own.

She picks up on the second ring, and Elena closes her eyes for a second. “Amy, hey—”

“How do you feel about Panama?”

“Uh,” she gets out, and it takes her a hot second to play catch up. “We’ve almost wrapped up in Iceland. I thought we were hitting Barbados next?”

“We were,” Amy says, and her voice is clipped despite the underlying notes of excitement in her tone. Or maybe that’s just Elena reading into things. “How much longer do you think you’re going to need out there?”

Elena frowns, and pushes her laptop away again before shifting to throw her feet over the side of the bed. “I need to get a couple re-shoots done, and I’m a little behind in the editing because of it. I thought we were scheduled for three more days?”

“Something came up,” Amy says, because that’s not ominous or anything. If there’s one thing Elena Fisher enjoys aside from tackling a challenge head-on and coming out on top, it’s having a plan. And it’s a bit hard to follow through with said plan if Amy’s going to start throwing wrenches, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

“What kind of something?” Elena asks, padding across the room to the window. She’s always paced during phone calls with producers. Rebecca says it’s because she gets stir crazy during long-winded conversations, and Elena wishes they’d just get to the point instead of beating around the bush.

“How much do you know about Sir Francis Drake?” Amy asks, and yeah, that’s definitely excitement in there. If she wasn’t curious before, she is now. She pauses, glancing up at the moulding and filtering through various papers and assignments and ‘casual’ reading she’s done over the years. She knows enough, she’d wager. “We’re tabling Barbados for now; that’s not going anywhere. What we have instead is something bigger—”

“What kind of ‘bigger’?” she cuts in, pacing by the window.

“Sir Francis Drake’s coffin,” she says, in a hushed tone like they’re talking conspiracies. “We got a call from a guy who claims to have information on the location. They’re doing a background check on him now and there’s no guarantee, but if it pans out the payload’s gonna be massive. And we’re not just talking really impressive historical find, we’re talking season two, we’re talking Elena Fisher’s name getting out there, we’re talking a ratings boost and getting you a  _crew_.”

That all sounds good—that all sounds  _really_  good, but she’s not without her reservations. She doesn’t even know this guy, and she doubts the production company does, either, background checks or no.

“He was cute, wasn’t he?”

“That’s neither here nor there,” Amy tells her, and she can imagine her waving her hand dismissively, which means she was right. At the very least, if things don’t pan out she gets to travel to a tropical locale, a place that’s nice and warm and has no snow. “I sent you an e-mail with the bare bones of what you need to know. Do your digging, wrap up your vikings, and don’t e-mail me unless it’s to say  _yes, thank you, Amy, you’re amazing._ You’re welcome.”

“I don’t—” Elena gets out, but instead is met with dial tone and the sound of her own breathing. She closes her eyes again, and counts back from three before her hand drops to her side, taking her phone with it. It’s not the best news, it’s not the worst news, she supposes, but it… definitely messes with some things. She doesn’t even know this guy, anyway, and she highly doubts Amy does, either. Her free hand muses her hair, and then she’s wandering back to the bed, editing be damned because now she has an e-mail to dig through, least Amy call her again in the next five minutes to see what her answer is.

Elena perches on the edge of her bed, scrolling past  _Sir Francis Drake’s coffin_ , and  _Panama_ , and lets her mouse linger over the name  _Nathan Drake_. Apparently he claims namesake, heritage, and she frowns because last she checked Drake didn’t have any heirs, so she can only imagine what this background check has found on him.

She glances down at the editing software tab open at the bottom of her screen, and chews her lip for a moment before opening a new tab in her internet browser. Her hands linger for a moment, but then the sun has already set and dinner isn’t for another hour, so it isn’t like she has anything better to do. If anything, it’s research for her next episode, and if it’s her ticket out of the cold…

Elena drums her fingers on her laptop, waiting for the search engine to load. Re-shoots can wait until daylight, but until then she has to do some digging into the hype.

“Alright, Nathan Drake, who the hell are you?”


End file.
